Technology News – Facebook has long been considered one of the ultimate time sucks, but now it seems it could actually be sucking the life out of your phone’s battery too.
The company is once again coming under fire this week amid concerns its mobile apps drain the life of users’ batteries.
Writing in The Guardian, technology reporter Samuel Gibbs claims to have found that uninstalling Facebook’s iOS app and accessing the social media site through Safari instead can save up to 15 percent of an iPhone’s battery life. Gibbs created a Safari shortcut for Facebook to place on his homescreen in place of the app, retaining the convenience of one-tap access to the service.
Similar concerns about Facebook’s Android app led to the discovery that deleting the app saves up to 20 pecent of a phone’s battery. Reddit users have also tested the app’s battery consumption. They found that uninstalling the Facebook and Facebook Messenger app allowed other apps to launch 15 per cent faster.
Facebook has long been cited as a cause of fast-draining phone batteries. Last year, the company came under fire for similar battery-sapping issues.
The company admitted problems existed that caused the app to run in the background even if it had been closed and apologized for the inconvenience it caused people. The social network issued an update to fix the problem.
In a post on his personal page, Facebook’s engineering manager Ari Grant wrote at the time: “The first issue we found was a ‘CPU spin’ in our network code.
“A CPU spin is like a child in a car asking, ‘Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?’ with the question not resulting in any progress to reaching the destination.
“This repeated processing causes our app to use more battery than intended.”
by MARCIA BREEN, NBCNews.com
